


red sky at morning

by doomcake



Series: Across the Universe [6]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Drama, Gangsters, Italian Mafia, M/M, Male Slash, Pseudo-medicine, Pseudo-nanoscience, Pseudo-quantum physics, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcake/pseuds/doomcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ah, normalcy. These last few months have settled into a nice morning routine, and Gokudera sometimes has a hard time just enjoying them for what they are.</i>
</p><p>In which Gokudera proves himself to be a very able mafia politician and scientist... if he can manage to avoid poisoning himself (and Yamamoto, his unwitting test subject) while he's at it.</p><p>[Part of an ongoing, post-TYL divergent AU arc]</p>
            </blockquote>





	red sky at morning

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and all affiliated characters and settings are the creative property of Akira Amano, Shueisha, Weekly Shounen Jump, and any other companies holding the title to its license and distribution (VIZ Media, etc.). Used without permission for non-profitable entertainment purposes.
> 
> \--
> 
> A million thanks to M, who peeked over this for me and assured me it didn't suck as badly as I feared. She's super-awesome!! \o/
> 
> \--
> 
> Part 5/? of "Across the Universe" series
> 
> **PLEASE NOTE:** This story is part of a prequel arc to "dive" (see the "first" part in this series--AO3 doesn't let us have a "part 0"). Not sure how this might be as a stand-alone fic, so I would recommend reading the previous sections leading up to this story.
> 
> **WARNINGS:** strong language (my Gokudera tends to be pretty foul-mouthed), very mild M/M sexual content, lots of pseudo-science in which I take a page (or several) out of Amano's book, Dr. Shamal being an asshole, discussions of violence/weaponry/sex, bad ideas that nobody should ever try at home.
> 
> RECOMMENDED LISTENING:  
> ♪ [primavera](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYCL8ONwH5M) { ludovico einaudi }

**« red sky at m o r n i n g »  
 _sailor's warning  
(there's a storm coming)_**

Gunfire echoes in the darkened lab, flashes of light punctuating the staccato beat in a bizarre, twisted light show. On one end of the lab is a battered, bullet-ridden rubber dummy, valiantly staying upright against its wooden stand in the face of its assailant. To its side, there’s a table where its three predecessors lay, equally shredded by gunfire. On the other end of the lab stands Gokudera, wearing a pair of safety goggles and earmuffs, shouldering a modified assault rifle with practiced ease and firing off round after round into the dummy.  
  
Behind a protected glass window in the lab’s office, Giannini sits at a desk watching his laptop. He also is wearing protective earmuffs, but he still flinches every time the assault rifle barks and bucks in Gokudera’s steady grip. This is the second round of tests they’ve run in the last three days, though Giannini already looks like he’s lost a week of sleep and several years off his life.  
  
For a weapons expert, Giannini seems awfully skittish around the assault rifle, Gokudera can’t help but notice. It’s almost unnerving, but Giannini’s invaluable input on Gokudera’s project has more than made up for the man’s hesitancy. (Gokudera also remembers a time when Giannini “upgraded” his bombs by turning them into a magic trick, of sorts. It shouldn’t be surprising that the engineer isn’t entirely comfortable around the weapons he helps create and modify.)  
  
After emptying the clip of his rifle into the dummy, Gokudera shoulders the gun and flicks on the safety.  
  
“Did you get enough information yet?” he calls, loud enough for his voice to echo off the concrete walls of his lab (and for Giannini to hear him through the glass).  
  
A thumbs up from Giannini, and Gokudera sighs in relief, rolling his shoulders. It doesn’t take much to hold and fire a rifle a few dozen times, but he’s done this routine too many times this week—he’s got a mild bruise forming at the junction of his shoulder and arm where the rifle’s recoil tapped against him. He gingerly sets the rifle back on its rack before he pulls off his goggles and earmuffs and enters the office area.  
  
Giannini is frowning.  
  
Leaning over Giannini’s shoulder, Gokudera squints at the charts and graphs on the computer screen. “See something?”  
  
“No,” Giannini replies, tapping the keyboard furiously as he scrolls through the results. “And that’s the problem—they just aren’t activating upon impact with the target.”  
  
Gokudera swears softly in Italian, scratching at the back of his head irritably. “So it’s the same as the last round, then.”  
  
“I’m afraid so.” Giannini sounds remorseful, like it’s somehow his fault, but Gokudera knows the engineer is doing the best he can to assist.  
  
“If the bullets weren’t covered in such a hard casing, do you think—?”  
  
“They’d just splatter on the skin, and they aren’t built to push through the dermis, especially if they aren’t activated.” He sighs, and adds, “Then there’s the problem of getting them to take. I don’t think they’re likely to integrate into human systems if we force the situation with blunt force trauma.”  
  
Gokudera chews on his lip, glaring at the computer screen as he tries to quickly come up with a solution around his current problem. Unfortunately, he isn’t coming up with a single idea that could possibly get around the problem at hand.  
  
“I guess it’s back to the drawing board, then,” he says finally. He claps a hand over Giannini’s shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”  
  
Giannini looks upset as he replies, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”  
  
“It’s not your fault—just a design flaw, I guess,” Gokudera replies grudgingly.  
  
Once Giannini packs his equipment and leaves, Gokudera sits at the table with the shredded dummies, staring down at the one still hooked up on the stand with a glare. In response, it makes a groaning, tearing sound, and the rubber arm comes clean off the bullet-riddled shoulder and falls to the ground.  
  
“Fuck you, too,” Gokudera growls, flipping off the broken dummy and stomping over to the office.  
  
Part of him wishes that Shamal would come back around without him having to ask for the asshole’s help. The other part of him, though—the stubborn part that remembers Shamal insisting that bullet form might be impractical for nanotechnology—doesn’t want to have to admit that Shamal is right.  
  
 _There has to be another way to make this useful_ , he thinks, glaring at the readouts for the latest test. _I can’t have come this far for this weapon to fail._  
  
With a frustrated sigh, he drops into the chair by the computer, and then looks up at the clock. It’s almost seven. Swearing furiously, Gokudera fumbles in his pocket for his cell phone, flips it open, and dials a number.  
  
“Hi—yes, but I’m on my way back.” He scrambles to his feet and heads to the door of the lab. “Don’t start dinner without me, idiot—”  
  
It’s strange, he thinks, how Yamamoto’s cheerful voice lifts his spirits so easily. All frustrations with the roadblock on his project melt away as he listens to Yamamoto’s bright laugh over the phone. He’ll come back to it later, after he’s had a chance to unwind.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Dammit, Shamal—pick up your goddamn phone!” Gokudera furiously hangs up after leaving the voicemail, throwing the phone at the couch in irritation. This is the third time he’s tried calling Shamal (who, by all reports, is still in Japan), but he hasn’t had any luck so far.  
  
“What was that about?” Yamamoto peeks out from the bedroom door, one towel wrapped around his waist and a second draped over his wet hair.  
  
Gokudera clenches his teeth, shaking his head. “Nothing. Just getting annoyed with a stubborn old coot, is all.”  
  
“Dr. Shamal?”  
  
He doesn’t reply. The face Yamamoto makes tells Gokudera that he isn’t fooling anyone—but he doesn’t say anything about it. _Yet_ , Gokudera’s mind supplies helpfully. Yamamoto smiles sympathetically and turns, rubbing the towel quickly through his hair. There are still faint shadows of bruises remaining on Yamamoto’s back, a subtle reminder that he’s still on the injured list, as far as Gokudera’s concerned.  
  
“Well, if it’s any consolation, Tsuna said he talked to Cavallone to see what they knew about the Jopok’s involvement with the Solntsevskaya Bratva. He says he wants to talk to you,” Yamamoto says over his shoulder. “Haha, and no, he didn’t tell me anything more than that,” he adds quickly.  
  
Gokudera smirks— _so the idiot’s learning._ “When does he want to talk?”  
  
“He said he’d let us know, but probably first thing tomorrow morning,” Yamamoto replies.  
  
Frowning, Gokudera asks, “Us?”  
  
Yamamoto pokes his head around the corner. “Well, yeah—haha, I was the one doing the research on them before, after all.”  
  
Gokudera grinds his teeth together— _okay, so maybe the idiot isn’t learning_ —because the whole reason Yamamoto got hurt is because of his “research” on the connection between the Koreans and the Russians. There’s no way in _hell_ Gokudera’s going to let him get hurt again, not like last time. Not on _his_ behalf, revenge on the Russians be damned—  
  
“Gokudera?” Yamamoto’s got a light frown on his face, and it’s then that Gokudera realizes he isn’t paying attention.  
  
“Hm? Sorry, was just thinking,” he says lamely. “You were saying?”  
  
Yamamoto’s smile turns a little sad. “Haha, it’s nothing—really!” He waves his hands defensively at Gokudera’s glare. “Just telling you that you shouldn’t worry so much about me getting involved in the discussion; I know what they fight like now!”  
  
“Who says I was worried?” Gokudera says, chucking a couch pillow at Yamamoto.  
  
“Haha, of course you were! I could see it on your face.”  
  
“Heh! Aren’t _we_ getting smug?”  
  
Yamamoto’s grin turns feral. “And what do you plan on doing about it?”  
  
“Maybe I should take you down a few pegs,” Gokudera says, narrowing his eyes (but he can’t help the matching smirk that’s tugging at the corners of his lips as well).  
  
Jerking at his tie to loosen it, he gets to his feet and starts to join Yamamoto in the bedroom, but a knock on the door makes him stop. Yamamoto shrugs, mouthing _later?_ Gritting his teeth irritably, Gokudera points at Yamamoto and mouths, _You stay right there_ , before he turns to answer the door.  
  
“I can’t believe you made me ditch a party just to find you half-ready to go fuck another man,” Shamal says irritably before Gokudera even has a chance to open his mouth.  
  
“Damn it, old man,” Gokudera hisses. “You know, a returned phone call would’ve been the polite thing to do, you bastard.”  
  
“Well, I’m here now—or is this a bad time?” Shamal’s looking past Gokudera’s shoulder in Yamamoto’s direction, but Gokudera moves to block his view.  
  
“It’s almost ten,” Gokudera replies with a groan. “At night,” he clarifies, because Shamal doesn’t seem to keep track of time all that well.  
  
“Do you want my help or not?”  
  
Gokudera swears under his breath, turning to look at Yamamoto with as much of an apology in his eyes as he can muster. Yamamoto simply nods, smiling—as always—and Gokudera turns, straightening up his tie before grabbing his keys.  
  
“I guess I don’t have a choice,” he says with a frustrated sigh. “Let’s go.”  
  
He pretends he doesn’t see the smirk on Shamal’s face—asshole probably got a kick out of ruining a perfectly good night in, if only because he’s made it _clear_ that he thinks this is revenge of some kind—and they quietly make their way to the lab.  
  
Gokudera rubs his palm against his temple as it aches in anticipation for a long night of arguing.  
  
  
  
  
  
“I thought I told you that trying to make this into one of Leon’s bullets was a bad idea,” Shamal says, scrutinizing a mutilated, spent cartridge. “Bullets are made to fragment and cause as much damage as possible—they just don’t _work_ if you’re trying to introduce a foreign substance into the body.”  
  
“What, shrapnel and metal aren’t foreign substances?” Gokudera snaps back petulantly. “Look, I’m not a physician. That’s why I’d asked for your help, oh, _over a month ago_.”  
  
Shamal snorts, looking up from the twisted metal held primly between rubber gloved fingertips. “Oh, so now this is _my_ fault that you can’t figure this shit out on your own? I thought you were past the stage of placing blame on everyone else for your internal issues, Hayato.”  
  
“Che.” Gokudera’s lip curls in irritation, and he looks away. Shamal has this habit of making him feel like he’s half his age, and it still pisses him off that he lets himself act like a two year old around the man.  
  
“Look, let me put it this way,” Shamal says. The metal clinks when he lets it fall to the tabletop. “If you want the body to take something in, incorporate it into the system, forcing it through with something like a bullet isn’t going to make the body want to accept the invasion. It’s like trying to force your dick into a woman—it takes some sweet-talking and coaxing to get her to accept it, otherwise she’ll reject you outright, and then _nobody_ —”  
  
“That’s enough!” Gokudera cuts him off with a wave of his hand, and then presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “You don’t need to be so vulgar, pervert. I get it.”  
  
“Point is, it’s like shooting someone with a gun to give them a vaccine. It’s just not efficient, it’s messy, and your target’s still gonna get the chicken pox.”  
  
Gokudera chews on his lip, trying to figure this out. This isn’t entirely news to him, since he suspected as much when his tests were all failing spectacularly. There are a few other ideas he has—ideas that he has already successfully tested in his lab rats—but he still isn’t sure how well they’ll work in humans.  
  
“So you’re saying that trying to make a weapon out of these nanotech machines is pointless?” he says grimly.  
  
“No,” Shamal replies—and he actually manages to not sound condescending this time. “You’re just going to have to move away from the guns-and-knives sector of weaponry.”  
  
Frowning, Gokudera’s mind whirls—his eyes land on the small mosquito that’s hanging out on the shoulder of Shamal’s lab coat, and the idea _clicks_.  
  
“Poison,” he blurts. At Shamal’s nod, Gokudera knows the point has been made—and that Shamal’s thinking the same thing. “Well, not poison, but something ingestible—and disguisable in food or liquid. But do you think the nanomachines will survive digestion and still function?”  
  
“There’s only one way to find out,” Shamal says with a lewd grin. “Maybe we should enlist the lovely Bianchi-chan’s help—”  
  
Gokudera makes a face, because he knows where this is leading. “Hell no. We’re leaving my sister out of this, you disgusting old man.”  
  
Shamal makes a face, but doesn’t press the issue. He probably realizes that getting Bianchi’s assistance would mean he has to face her famous… _infamous_ cooking. No matter how determined he might be, Shamal obviously has a sense of self-preservation, Gokudera notes with a smirk.  
  
“I see where you’re going with the idea, though,” Gokudera relents after a moment. “Let me make some modifications before I start testing it.”  
  
Shamal seems to take the cue, simply smirking as he takes his leave with an abrupt farewell. Gokudera barely notices him leaving as he sits down to tackle the blueprints on his miniature machines once more. This time, he thinks, he’ll get somewhere.  
  
  
  
  
  
The first batch Gokudera manages to test into oblivion—the one that he’s finally sure won’t be immediately toxic to humans, at the very least—he stares at hesitantly as it sits in a monitored beaker, next to a half-empty cup of lukewarm coffee leftovers. All that’s left is the reprogramming, because he doesn’t want these things activating needlessly if he’s going to use it on himself. He has a bad feeling it’s going to taste disgusting (metallic, maybe plastic-y), but his main concern is whether they’ll actually do the job they’re designed to do.  
  
He’s trying the receptors on himself; mainly because he knows he can repurpose them should they work as programmed. It’s a big risk he’s taking, he knows—but it’s one he has long mulled over, spent countless nights losing sleep over, and decided that it’s worth it. Images of a back covered in deep black-and-purple bruises still haunt his nights, and he doesn’t even want to think of something worse than what could have happened that day. If the Jopok targeted Yamamoto once—and failed—they would definitely be trying again. Gokudera knows he wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for that idiot—  
  
…Yeah. _More_ than worth it.  
  
A few more tweaks, and the nanomachines respond beautifully—at least, according to the readouts he’s getting. His heart flutters in excitement as he realizes just how well this is all going. Just one more test needs to be done to make sure they work. Staring intently at one of the many rings adorning his slender fingers, he smirks as he sees familiar red flame burst from the Vongola Storm emblem. He nurtures it, encourages it to grow before he moves his hand next to the beaker.  
  
The monitor flares to life in a string of additional new readouts that only serve to bolster Gokudera’s hopes—for once, he’s finally getting somewhere. _Finally_.  
  
He lets the flames in his ring die down, and the monitor silences. Pulling the beaker away from its monitor, he swirls it around a bit, eyeing the clear contents warily. It looks like water; innocuous, transparent, but unbelievably powerful.  
  
“Well, here goes nothing,” he says to himself. “You little fuckers better work properly.”  
  
He pours the contents of the beaker into his coffee mug until it’s full again. Taking a deep breath, he lifts the mug up and downs the entire contents in a quick series of chugs. Grimacing as he finishes—old, cold coffee tastes _nasty_ , but diluted down by the nanomachines, it’s downright _vile_ —he slams down the mug on the counter and tries not to throw up everything he just swallowed.  
  
Holding completely still, Gokudera rides out the nausea. When he’s sure he isn’t going to puke the moment he starts moving again, he takes stock of how he feels—not bad, all things considered, he decides after a few moments. The only thing he’d change is the method of ingestion. Using that morning’s coffee isn’t the wisest method, but it was all he has handy at the moment. Maybe something with a stronger flavor— _Oh._  
  
With a smirk, he knows exactly how he’s going to get the test subject for the transmitters to ingest the machines. And he has a damn good excuse to back it up too, now that things are finally going well. Gokudera pockets a vial of the transmitters, carefully tucking it into the hidden inner pocket of his suit jacket. Yamamoto won’t even know what hit him, if all goes as Gokudera plans.  
  
He flips open his phone to text Yamamoto that he’ll be a bit late, but that he’ll be bringing dinner with him— _so be patient, idiot_ , he adds for effect. It isn’t two seconds later that his phone chirps with a response. He smiles fondly as he reads the exuberant reply, clutching his phone close to his chest for just a moment before he leaves the lab.  
  
  
  
  
  
The dinner is _perfect_ —Gokudera had stopped at Takesushi before heading back to the apartment (without telling Yamamoto) to pick up a fantastic platter of assorted sashimi and maki, and he dove into his best stash of strong sake. Yamamoto seems surprised when Gokudera brings all the food in, but it’s a pleased sort of surprised, and that’s all that matters right now.  
  
They enjoy dinner in each other’s company, and both bottles of sake are gone by the time dessert is fished out of the freezer. If Yamamoto thinks the sake tastes funny, he doesn’t say anything.  
  
It couldn’t have gone more smoothly.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Gokudera-kun, are you sure you’re okay? You look a little pale.”  
  
Gokudera blinks up from his chair, finally focusing in on the Tenth’s worried expression. Fumbling, he tries to get himself composed, but the dizzy, light-headed, slightly-nauseous feeling that’s been nagging him all morning doesn’t help. He wonders, for a moment, if maybe he’s a little hung over.  
  
“Ah, yes! Sorry for worrying you, Tenth. I’m fine,” he says, as brightly as he can manage. Sheepishly, he adds, “It’s a little embarrassing, but I think I may have had a little too much to drink last night.”  
  
Tsuna’s frown doesn’t disappear ( _damn_ ) as he sits further back in his chair at his desk. “Okay… But you can take the day to rest if you really need it. I can manage it from here.”  
  
Gokudera looks down at the paperwork in his hands—a file on the human trafficking issue with the local Jopok—and grits his teeth. The thought of being able to go back to his apartment and rest this weird bug off is tempting, but not when they’ve got an important problem on the line.  
  
“No, no—I’ll be okay, really,” he replies, determined. He needs to change the subject, quickly. “So… you were saying that the leaders of the Jopok sent you a message this morning?”  
  
Tsuna stiffens. “They did,” he confirms. “I think they assumed we were trying to get involved in their business when Yamamoto was doing his investigation. We actually didn’t know about the human trafficking line they had _until_ Yamamoto discovered their ties with the Russians.”  
  
“I know that much,” Gokudera replies carefully. “And now that we _do_ know about their alternate form of income, what do you think we should do about it?”  
  
Gokudera already half-knows the answer to that question. The Tenth doesn’t like conflict when he can avoid it, but he _despises_ human trafficking. It’s up there on Tsuna’s very short list of _Things That Really Piss Him Off_ , and for that reason alone, Gokudera knows they should start bracing themselves for a larger-scale conflict. There’s no way that his boss will let this issue slide, especially since it’s so close to their home headquarters.  
  
But there’s something about this whole operation that is decidedly _off_ , Gokudera thinks. The fact that these Jopok have ties to the Solntsevskaya Bratva—the fact that the Russians were the one to hold Gokudera hostage under Giacomo, the direct ties Giacomo had to the Gesso, and thus to Byakuran… Something isn’t right. It feels like there’s a bigger picture right at the edge of his train of thought, but he can’t quite seem to get clear enough focus to zone in on it.  
  
The worsening nausea and buzzing headache he’s sporting right now aren’t helping at all. And now that he’s acknowledging that he feels like _shit_ , all of a sudden the nausea bubbles into something more dangerous, like—  
  
“Gokudera-kun?”  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” Gokudera mutters, standing up suddenly ( _ohhh bad idea_ ), and has to lurch towards the bathroom. “I’ll be right back, I’m sorry!”  
  
He doesn’t even remember making it all the way to the toilet, but the next thing Gokudera’s aware of is the cool porcelain surface of a toilet, and a miserable-sounding moan. It takes him a moment to realize that the moan came from him, and it’s a little mortifying. _What the hell—?  
_  
“Gokudera…?” Tsuna’s voice sounds worried (and close by), and it takes Gokudera another few seconds to realize that Tsuna’s rubbing small, soothing circles in the center of his back.  
  
 _Oh god.  
_  
“I… I’m so sorry,” he manages, and even just the effort to speak makes his stomach heave again. Nothing comes up and the feeling passes, so he hesitantly looks over his shoulder. “I-I think I’m okay now. Jesus, how embarrassing.”  
  
Tsuna shakes his head. “No, no, it’s okay! You really should go back to your apartment and rest, though—you don’t look like you feel so well. Think you can stand up?”  
  
Gokudera takes stock of himself—he’s feeling a little shaky, stomach still quivering uncertainly, a little bit of a cold sweat coming on—but it’s manageable. He’s had hangovers worse than this, damn it.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says again.  
  
Tsuna offers a weak grin. “You must’ve had one hell of a night last night,” he comments dryly. “I called Yamamoto to come get you, and it sounds like he isn’t in much better condition than you are—he said he’d been puking his guts up all morning.”  
  
“Well, shit.”  
  
“Maybe you guys have food poisoning?” Tsuna suggests.  
  
Gokudera snorts. “We had dinner on Tsuyoshi last night,” he says with a mirthless grin. “I doubt it. I really think we both simply had too much to drink last night.”  
  
Tsuna hums thoughtfully, seeming to chalk it up to a hangover as well. “Remind me not to go drinking with you two.”  
  
“Ugh, tell me about it.” Gokudera stands shakily with a little assistance from Tsuna, flushes the mess away, and rinses his mouth out in the sink. “I’m really sorry,” he says again as he wipes his mouth, even though he knows it’s unnecessary. “That was completely unacceptable.”  
  
Tsuna laughs lightly, and it’s a nice sound. “It’s really okay! I’m actually surprised you didn’t stay home when you started to feel bad this morning. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
The sincerity in Tsuna’s tone does help, as far as soothing Gokudera’s concerns. “I can be back in tonight and start working on setting up a meeting with the Jopok leaders,” he says.  
  
“We can do that in the morning,” Tsuna replies quickly. “Just get some rest. Yamamoto will be able to weigh in as well if we wait until you’re both feeling better, and Ryohei should be back from his mission later tonight.”  
  
Gokudera simply nods, squelching the urge to apologize yet again. Instead, he bids a sheepish farewell and shuffles off to the apartment.  
  
He hears retching when he opens the door, and immediately feels guilty.  
  
“Yamamoto?” he calls as he closes the door behind him, hesitantly heading to the bathroom where the horrible sound is coming from. He knocks on the door, cracking it open to see Yamamoto curled possessively around the toilet.  
  
Yamamoto looks up miserably, trying to manage a smile—but it’s interrupted by a wide-eyed look, followed quickly by another round of heaving. Gokudera quickly moves to his side, putting a hand on Yamamoto’s back (the shirt is damp with cold sweat) sympathetically. Yamamoto moans so softly that it’s almost a whine.  
  
Oddly, though, Gokudera doesn’t feel sick to his stomach anymore—maybe it passed?  
  
“Ugh, I know how you feel,” Gokudera says, soothingly rubbing Yamamoto’s back in between rounds of heaving. “I was just there myself about an hour ago.”  
  
Yamamoto looks miserable as he looks up, but even so, he’s frowning a little in concern. “You don’t think it was—”  
  
“Food poisoning?” Gokudera supplies, snorting. “Your dad would have a _fit_ if he thought it was his food. No, I don’t think that’s it; I’m suspecting a hangover.”  
  
“But I wasn’t even drunk after that last night,” Yamamoto protests, taking a deep breath through his nose as he visibly fights another bout. “A little buzzed, but definitely not drunk enough for this.”  
  
He loses his fight with the nausea, and is painfully wrenching his stomach from the inside out. Gokudera winces in sympathy.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I wish I knew what was causing this, but it’ll pass—I’m already feeling better.”  
  
Yamamoto laughs hoarsely. “Lucky,” he says.  
  
“Need anything? Glass of water?” Gokudera asks after a moment—blessedly peaceful, in between rounds of retching.  
  
Yamamoto nods his head, and it’s so pitiful that Gokudera has to resist the urge to scruff his hair.  
  
“I’ll be right back,” he promises.  
  
As he grabs a glass out of the kitchen, Gokudera’s guilt is eating at his mind, trying to figure out what it might be that’s causing them both to be so sick. He’s pretty confident in the idea that Takesushi’s fare isn’t to blame (though it _is_ rather suspicious), and after Yamamoto’s comments about his state of drunkenness the night before… Well, Gokudera can’t quite seem to put a finger on it—  
  
 _Oh_. It hits him so suddenly, but it’s so obvious that he feels like an idiot for not having realized it sooner. The only other thing both of them had in common last night was ingesting the nanomachines.  
  
“Well, _shit_ ,” Gokudera says aloud, though it’s mostly to himself.  
  
The body isn’t taking to the nanomachines as smoothly as he would have expected, then. But if he’s already feeling better, then does that mean it’s a temporary problem? Did he puke up the machines? Gokudera knows he’s going to have to run some tests when he gets a good opportunity. In the meantime, he has a baseball idiot to help back onto his feet.  
  
Yamamoto’s already looking a little better by the time he brings the glass of water back into the bathroom. It gives Gokudera a small measure of hope, that he didn’t fuck this up as royally as he has been fearing. He kneels down and hands the glass to Yamamoto.  
  
“Thanks,” Yamamoto says, after taking a few hesitant sips.  
  
“Sorry,” Gokudera says.  
  
Yamamoto grins apologetically. “’S not your fault.”  
  
 _The hell it isn’t!_ But Gokudera doesn’t say it out loud, and leaves it at that.  
  
  
  
  
  
Gokudera wakes the next morning with a muscled arm draped heavily over his shoulder, calloused fingers dangling near his face. The idiot is breathing heavily against the back of his neck with a light snore on each inhale. It’s hard to be annoyed at him, especially after last night—although, on second thought, Gokudera’s actually pretty comfortable. If they didn’t have a meeting coming up, he would be content to snooze out a lazy morning.  
  
Instead, he gently shrugs Yamamoto’s arm off of him, feeling a little bad about disturbing his rest as he shifts awake with a sleep-confused murmur, and rolls out of the bed.  
  
“Hey, Yamamoto,” he says softly. “Morning. Time to wake up—we have a meeting in an hour.”  
  
“Mmph—wha?” Yamamoto’s face pops up from the pillow, eyes still half-lidded as he tries to blink away sleep. An exaggerated yawn and a roll to look at the clock later, he’s pulling himself out of bed gingerly. “Ugh, it’s early.”  
  
“Feeling better?”  
  
Yamamoto seems to take stock, and then nods. “Yeah, I think so. The stomach ache is gone.”  
  
“Good.” It’s hard to suppress the sigh of relief, but Gokudera manages. “I’m going to take a quick shower, then the bathroom’s all yours,” Gokudera says.  
  
“’Kay,” Yamamoto replies with a yawn, scratching the back of his head as he trudges off to the kitchen (probably to make coffee, thank God for caffeine).  
  
As promised, Gokudera goes through his showering routine in five minutes, and by the time he emerges from the bathroom, there’s the delightful smell of breakfast cooking and coffee brewing. It’s a good sign that the smell isn’t making Gokudera’s stomach churn—so he’s assuming that Yamamoto’s feeling better as well, if he’s actually cooking breakfast.  
  
“Hey,” Gokudera greets as he walks into the kitchen, rubbing a towel over his damp hair. “Bathroom’s open, when you’re ready.”  
  
“Almost done!” Yamamoto says around a bite of rice. “Just finishing up the eggs.”  
  
With a flurried motion of chopsticks and some fancy pan flipping, Yamamoto rushes one set of eggs over to a mound of rice on a plate and flips it on top with an expert motion. A precise cut across the top, and the eggs spill their guts over the rice and the plate. Yamamoto grins up at Gokudera cheekily as he hands him the plate.  
  
“Showoff,” Gokudera says, pouring himself a cup of coffee before sitting at the bar on the kitchen’s small island. The omurice looks delicious, and his stomach growls in anticipation.  
  
Yamamoto’s grin just gets wider. He whips up a plate for himself in a similar flashy fashion and sits down next to Gokudera, setting down happily.  
  
Ah, normalcy. These last few months have settled into a nice morning routine, and Gokudera sometimes has a hard time just enjoying them for what they are. It’s a constant struggle not to keep his hackles raised in anticipation of something going wrong—but since Yamamoto’s back injury, it’s been relatively quiet. It almost makes him wish ( _hope_ is a dangerous word) that _this_ could be their lives, once the Byakuran situation is completely behind them.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, though. Instead, he squelches the fear and the doubt, and simply enjoys a quiet breakfast with Yamamoto.  
  
  
  
  
  
“I think we need to set up a meeting with the local Jopok leaders,” Tsuna says, after his guardians are settled at their smaller conference table in the side of his office. “I’d rather avoid a fight, if it’s possible.”  
  
Gokudera finds himself nodding in agreement (because who is he to argue with the Tenth on these matters?), although there’s still a small part of him that’s _pissed_ and wants retribution for what they did to Yamamoto. But he keeps his mouth shut.  
  
“What if they really are dealing in human trafficking, though?” Yamamoto asks, and it takes Gokudera by surprise that he says anything. “Are we going to stand by and let them? I know how you feel about dealing with humans as currency, Tsuna. If they really are involved with the Russians on that issue…”  
  
Tsuna bites his lip. “I know.” His hands are fidgeting in front of him on his desk. “If that really is the case, then we have a responsibility to do something about it. But I want to make sure we know just how involved they are before picking a fight—if they’re just getting started, perhaps there’s a chance that we could talk them out of it before they get in too deep.”  
  
“But if we can’t—”  
  
“We should fight them!!” Ryohei interjects. “They wanted to fight us when we saw them last! It was pretty extreme—they even fought with their fists, too!! And they hurt Yamamoto last time!”  
  
Yamamoto’s eyes harden at Ryohei’s words, and Gokudera can tell they’re both itching for a little vengeance. There aren’t many people who can get the drop on Yamamoto, and anyone who _does_ … Well, it’s safe for Gokudera to say that Yamamoto’s competitive nature comes out a little more intensely than usual. And as much as Gokudera wants to dole out a beating for the assholes who hurt Yamamoto, he can’t let his emotions act for him here.  
  
“The Tenth is right,” Gokudera says suddenly. “As much as I’d like to agree with you two, we need to exhaust other non-violent options before we pick any fights. For all we know, the Russians are backing them here in Tokyo, and maybe even the Gesso—if we take them on now without knowing who else is behind them, it’d be like jumping right into an ambush blindfolded.” He sighs, rubbing the back of his head. “At the very least, taking the time to talk it out will give us enough time to dig around some more, figure out what’s really going on here.”  
  
Tsuna nods emphatically as Gokudera speaks, and it still makes Gokudera’s heart flutter every time he says something that pleases his boss. It makes him feel more like an adequate adjunct to the Tenth, which is his goal. But when he glances in Yamamoto’s direction, he catches the edge of a strange look that makes his fluttering heart _stop_. Before he can figure out what that look means—is it hurt? Anger? Agreement?—Yamamoto offers a smile instead.  
  
 _He’s putting up a wall._  
  
And that realization hurts more than Gokudera would like to admit.  
  
They conclude the meeting with a conference call to one of Gokudera’s contacts, who has a few inside ties to the local Jopok. It doesn’t take long to set up a face-to-face with some of the key leaders, who also seem overly eager to have a few words with the Vongola guardians. (Tsuna won’t be at the meeting, because Gokudera doesn’t trust the Jopok to not pull something fishy with the Vongola Tenth within shooting range. They’re working on getting Hibari to join them instead, should anything go horribly wrong with their negotiations—the extra manpower would be handy in a fight.)  
  
Gokudera leaves Tsuna’s office with mixed feelings, and it leaves a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
  
  
  
  
It’s quiet in the apartment when Gokudera returns. There’s a note sitting on the counter, in Yamamoto’s scrawl, saying that he’s out sparring with Ryohei—he’ll be back in time for dinner, though. No traces of what Yamamoto’s thinking are evident, for which Gokudera doesn’t know to be grateful or concerned. Instead, he sighs, scrawling out a note of his own in case Yamamoto beats him back.  
  
He heads to the lab, determined to find out if the nanomachines survived his violent homage to the porcelain god of Tsuna’s office restroom.  
  
Halfway to the lab, he feels a tingle going down his spine—a chill, a premonition, perhaps—but it fades to a dismissible buzz in the back of his mind, so Gokudera ignores it after a beat. Taking a seat near the microscopes, Gokudera pulls out a small med kit with a blood sample kit. Using a tourniquet, he preps his own arm and draws a small sample out (just enough to figure out if his babies are in his blood), dresses the small puncture on his arm, and takes a dropper full to the microscope.  
  
At first, he feels tight in the chest when he doesn’t see anything different about his blood. _I can’t see them—does it mean that I did puke them all up?_ (It’d be a very expensive loss, he realizes morosely, but more importantly it would signal a failure of the nanomachines to integrate into his system.) Even though he can’t see them now, though, there _is_ one sure-fire method of making sure they’re still present. After calming his momentary panic, he takes a deep breath and focuses his will into the rings on his fingers, feeling the familiar burn of the storm flames flickering to life. The blood sample practically sparkles under the microscope as he watches the reaction to his red flames.  
  
The smirk he’s wearing dies on his lips when he suddenly feels like he’s tethered to something (someone?) straight through his chest. It isn’t painful, but it’s an odd sensation—like his very essence is being drawn out of his own body. Heart pounding in panic, he doesn’t know what’s happening, until suddenly a sharp pain flares in his forearm. Recoiling as if he’d taken a blow, he looks down at his arm to find the beginnings of a red welt.  
  
 _What the hell—_  
  
It’s a bruise—he isn’t sure where it’s coming from. But a bright, smiling face pops immediately to mind, along with a hastily-scrawled note that’s currently sitting in his trash bin in the apartment.  
  
 _Yamamoto’s sparring with Ryohei,_ he realizes. Which means they’re likely using elemental flames, which would trigger the nanomachines on Yamamoto’s end as well, and if Gokudera is getting a bruise on his arm already from a blow that he never saw coming—  
  
In that one jittery, overjoyed half-second it takes for the racing train of thought to reach its final station, it _clicks_. The laughter bubbles out of Gokudera’s throat and lips almost manically before he realizes how insane he’s sounding right now. But he doesn’t care, because by _damn_ , the bruise forming on his arm is the best fucking news he’s had all night.  
  
“ _Mio Dio_ ,” Gokudera says aloud. “It fucking works. Damn! It _fucking works_! Ha! And even at this distance, too!”  
  
Another stinging bruise starts to form next to the first one on his forearm, startling him into a wince and a hiss, so he lets his flames die down. As much as he doesn’t like Yamamoto getting hurt, taking sparring blows for him isn’t going to do either one of them any favors. (Ryohei may be loud and obnoxious, but the man hits like a fucking freight train.)  
  
In any case, project number one is a success—even if it’s not in the way Gokudera originally intended, when he’d first started working on it. But he’ll take what he can get at this point. His mind’s too overblown with excitement for him to even think about focusing on project number two; with a sidelong glance at the slow-growing hunk of science fiction-esque machinery on the other side of the lab, he decides that it’s something that can wait until tomorrow.  
  
Gokudera can’t quite manage to get his grin under control until well after he leaves the lab.  
  
  
  
  
  
His arms are stiff that night, with achy twinges going up and down his bruised forearm as Gokudera brushes his teeth. The earlier glee at seeing the bruises is slowly being replaced with irritation at their inconvenience. The bruises really don’t hurt that much, but they are just annoying enough to set his teeth on edge.  
  
Yamamoto, on the other hand, seems uplifted and happy after his sparring session. It’s almost like he got a breath of fresh air after being crammed inside a stuffy room for so long—Gokudera envies him a little bit, but is relieved to see Yamamoto’s mood from the meeting much improved.  
  
“Man, I guess I needed that workout tonight! Haha,” Yamamoto exclaims when Gokudera comes in from getting ready for bed and flops on the couch to watch television. Yamamoto’s fixing a protein shake for himself in the kitchen. “Ryohei knows how to hit hard—I like sparring with him!”  
  
“Yeah, don’t I know it,” Gokudera mutters, looking down at his arms. The bruises aren’t pretty, but they’re not as bad as he’d worried they would be.  
  
“What was that?” The blender stops for a second.  
  
“Nothing,” Gokudera replies, turning his attention to the news. Not much is on, though the Yomiuri Giants managed to win their game that evening.  
  
“ _Augh!_ I had that game recorded—I wanted the winner to be a surprise!” Yamamoto protests, dropping himself in the overstuffed chair next to the couch.  
  
“Oh… well, I can’t help what they show on the news!” Gokudera replies defensively. “How was I supposed to know they were going to have a section on _Kyojin_ tonight?”  
  
“Haha, they always have a sports segment during the nightly news!” Yamamoto replies. “I thought you’d know that by now, since you watch it almost every night—”  
  
“Oh shush, smartypants,” Gokudera says. “Sorry for spoiling your surprise outcome, then.”  
  
He reaches forward to change the channel out of stubbornness, but suddenly there’s a strong, calloused fist closing around his wrist. Startled, Gokudera drops the remote to the carpet and hisses at the sudden pressure on the tender spots, and he looks up at Yamamoto in a panic—Yamamoto’s eyeing the bruises. _Shit, how am I going to explain—_  
  
“What are these?” Yamamoto’s voice is suddenly cold, and Gokudera has to resist the urge to shiver. “Were you sparring tonight?”  
  
“No!” Gokudera says, protesting. (He’s still technically not supposed to be putting excess pressure on his knee, even though it’s been feeling almost perfect for a few weeks at this point.) “No, these are from the lab. I got a little clumsy with the heavier equipment tonight.”  
  
Yamamoto’s eyeing him warily, like he doesn’t quite believe him, but he lets Gokudera’s wrist go. “You should ask for help if you’re going to be moving the heavier stuff,” he says instead, and Gokudera inwardly sighs in relief. “You still haven’t been cleared by the staff physician for heavy lifting or sparring yet, so take it easy.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Gokudera says dismissively with a wave of his hand. “Don’t have to remind me that I’m useless.”  
  
He says it lightly, so that Yamamoto doesn’t start lecturing him again about seeing a counselor ( _who needs fucking shrinks anyway_ ), but the reminder still stings. But Gokudera doesn’t bring up the issue again, for fear of Yamamoto getting suspicious. For now, he’s managed to dodge a bullet. But his restrictions remind him that Yamamoto is only recently cleared of his back injury, so he gives Yamamoto an appraising look.  
  
“How’s your back?” he asks suddenly. “Sparring isn’t agitating it, is it?”  
  
Yamamoto grins cheekily at him. “Nope! It’s feeling pretty awesome, actually.” He rolls his shoulders for emphasis, but then shoots a sly grin in Gokudera’s direction with an exaggerated grunt. “But you know, I could always go for a massage. It’s a little stiff tonight—”  
  
Gokudera snorts. “Let me guess, your back’s not the only thing that’s stiff tonight?” Yamamoto’s grin turns into a full-fledged _leer_. “Pervert.”  
  
But he’s grinning, too, and it’s a good feeling. (And as predicted, one thing leads to another, and Gokudera is even _sorer_ the following morning—but that, too, is a good feeling.)  
  
  
  
  
  
It doesn’t entirely escape Gokudera’s notice that Yamamoto doesn’t bring up their earlier meeting with Tsuna. But Gokudera doesn’t bring that up either (it occurs to him that maybe Yamamoto was trying to dodge his own bullet); whenever something’s bothering Yamamoto, he brings it up on his own.  
  
Eventually.  
  
… Gokudera will cross that bridge when he comes to it.  
  
  
  
  
  
“ _Sonofabitch_ ,” Gokudera hisses as he cuts his finger on a piece of jagged scrap metal. This is the third attempt at attaching one of the panels to the controls of the machine’s cockpit, and it isn’t going well. “Why are these fucking things so stubborn?”  
  
Another tug at the metal encasings on the cockpit, and Gokudera sends the offending piece of jagged metal flying across the lab, through the opening where the window to the cockpit will be going. When he finally finishes the control panels, that is.  
  
 _If_ he can get them to stop overloading the motherboards he’s using.  
  
… _If_ this thing will actually work.  
  
But as he goes back over the calculations in his mind, there isn’t any way that this _won’t_ work, unless he screws up the wiring somehow. He’s gone over those calculations a million times, and each time he comes to the same conclusion: he’s on track. Scarily so. This thing _will_ work, he keeps telling himself, and the mantra rings loudly in his head as he wrestles with wiring.  
  
Now if only he could get this simple problem of forcing a control panel to fit in the right spot, he might feel a little more confident.  
  
Three more attempts later, Gokudera finally hears a _clicksnap_ —and the panel drops into place, almost like magic. It’s beautiful, this hideous piece of trash, he thinks. He growls a few more choice Italian curses in the thing’s direction before he allows himself a small smile of victory. Now to test the wiring, make sure it’s connected properly in the back.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Gokudera channels his dying will back into the rings (ignores the sparking of the overeager nanomachines in his blood), bringing the storm ring to a warm, red glow that slowly envelopes his entire hand. Once he achieves as much, he presses his palm into the orb at the center of the control panel.  
  
It’s silent for a gut-dropping moment, but then the tortuous wait is over in a manner of seconds before a veritable light show flickers and crackles to life around him. The panels whine pleasantly as energy charges through them, followed by a series of flashing and flickering control lights. The screen to the left of the start-up panel flares to life, with controllable options flickering into view one by one.  
  
 _Set start point. Divergent point A. Divergent point B. Add divergence. Return to start point._  
  
Gokudera shudders as all the options he programmed into the system finally light up and display on the screen. Two successful projects in a row—this is almost too good to be true. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he closes his eyes and relishes that precious moment, where everything is finally going his way.  
  
All that’s left now is for him to test this motherfucking hunk of junk out. As he has already learned (quite recently), even his best calculations are rarely perfectly accurate. He thinks maybe after they have their meeting with the Jopok (and at least start working towards a resolution there, be it through war or peace), he’ll have a better opportunity to fully explore his new baby’s most promising features.  
  
A small blip on one of the screens interrupts his reverie, a small red light he programmed into the system at the start to register potential initial attempts to hijack the system. Blinking, startled, he panics— _What the hell?_ _How the fuck could anyone know about this already? Who would—_ His heart skips several beats in his chest before fluttering and thudding against his ribcage in sudden terror.  
  
There’s only one person in this entire universe that he knows has the ability to detect something like this happening, and in that moment, Gokudera realizes his most terrible mistake.  
  
 _Byakuran knows._  
  
He’s just given away the fact that the Vongola has a trump card to their greatest enemy, and he isn’t even sure _how_ he did it.  
  
Gokudera immediately powers the machine down, trying to figure out how the fuck he screwed up so badly—and then he realizes that the air stinks of ozone, kind of like leftover flames from a strong chemical fire.  
  
 _The elemental flames. That’s how he knows—_  
  
But if that’s how Byakuran is sensing the ‘hopper’ (as Gokudera has taken to calling it), then perhaps he can buy them some time if he simply alerted Byakuran to the presence of something unusual. The man probably has no idea what he was sensing, Gokudera thinks— _hopes_ (the secondary alarm, the one that warns of an _actual_ hijacking, never went off, after all) _—_ and if that’s the case, Gokudera still has a little bit of time to come up with a contingency plan.  
  
His mind on overdrive, he hauls himself back to the drawing board at his desk. He _has_ to come up with a plan, something to either buy them more time, or to throw Byakuran off his tracks for good.  
  
Swearing in three different languages, Gokudera starts tearing into the blueprints of the ‘hopper’ and tries to figure out where the security threat is the most dire. If he can find the glitch—the loophole, the gaping wound—in time, there’s a chance that Byakuran’s stolen knowledge won’t even matter.  
  
At least, that’s what Gokudera hopes.  
  
 _God help us_ , he breathes, and starts a fresh page of notes.

**_to be continued..._ **


End file.
